# Facility Management, Maintenance and Operation Core

> **NIH NIH UC7** · UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA · 2024 · $734,874

## Abstract

Project Summary
Core 1: Facilities Management, Maintenance, and Operations Core
The University of Missouri Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, the Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research
(LIDR) is a stand-alone facility, located in the east side of campus, that was designed to support research on
select agent pathogens requiring biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) containment. Because of the safety and security risks
associated with this research program, the LIDR follows strict site and building security procedures as well as a
rigorous and comprehensive building maintenance schedule and strong personnel infrastructure to maintain
continuous operations of the biocontainment facility. The Facilities Management, Maintenance, and Operations
Core (Core 1 of this UC7 application) is responsible for site and building security and proper functioning of all
building systems. Operations and management of the BSL-3 containment areas involves dozens of trades,
needing HVAC, telecom, steam, hot-water boilers, campus steam, chilled water, electrical distribution, natural
gas, emergency generator, CO2 distribution, water treatment and purification, effluent decontamination, and an
on-site chiller for back-up chilled water. Together the building systems in conjunction with tested emergency
procedures provide redundancy for all off-normal events that could impact the containment areas and adversely
affect research, laboratory workers, and/or the environment. The breadth of expertise needed to maintain
building systems is provided by the MU Campus Facilities group, who employs tradesman in every area that are
assigned to preventive maintenance and repair duties. In addition, there are presently 57 select agent-approved
individuals, along with daily and periodic visitors including building maintenance contractors, renovation
contractors, skilled tradespeople, custodial staff, facility and program inspectors, and users from the broader
infectious disease community at MU. As LIDR BSL-3 laboratories are approved for select agent research, the
site security and biosafety plans require a significant workforce dedicated to facilities management. The
objectives of the proposed Facilities Management, Maintenance, and Operations Core are to increase
efficiencies of the BSL-3/ACL-3/ABSL-3 research program at LIDR, to train an outstanding biocontainment
facilities workforce, and contribute to the RBL-NBL network by sharing of resources and best practices in the
management of high containment facilities. To achieve these goals, the proposed core will work closely with the
BSL-3 Practices Core (core 2) and the Biocontainment Services and Research Resources Core (core 3) to
provide synergy in meeting the needs of the BSL-3 and broader research communities in order to advance the
development of novel medical countermeasures against high consequence bacterial and viral priority pathogens.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10910191
- **Project number:** 5UC7AI180306-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Mark D Richardson
- **Activity code:** UC7 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $734,874
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-18 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10910191

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10910191, Facility Management, Maintenance and Operation Core (5UC7AI180306-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10910191. Licensed CC0.

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